


In the Quiet Air

by Stariceling



Category: Tsuritama
Genre: Gen, M/M, Social Anxiety, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 06:01:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16826587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stariceling/pseuds/Stariceling
Summary: Urara is willing to run to another planet to keep from saying too much. It's not until he's on Earth that he finds someone he can be quiet with.





	In the Quiet Air

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't edit this in time to post properly for sportsfest, but I couldn't not finish.
> 
> Sportsfest prompt: Most likely to hide their feelings for as long as possible  
> Avoidance level: Leave the planet.

“I’ll teach you to cast, but maybe first you should see if you like fishing. This is usually a good spot, so, um. . . Here, I’ll show you how to tie the lure.”

Urara nodded and watched in dutiful silence as Yuki demonstrated. Yuki was patient when it took him several tries to mimic the result. He was surprised by the little swell of pride when he finally got a knot that Yuki approved for fishing.

He didn’t really mind Haru shoving him out on the dock with Yuki for a fishing lesson and insisting that they go be friends. Yuki seemed to be more flustered about it than he was.

It had been Haru’s idea to come back to Earth in the first place. Urara had been in Earth’s ocean too long. There had been so much water and no one to hear him. Urara felt like his voice only grew, echoing as he gathered a multitude of bodies to pack the empty space around him.

Urara’s filter between thought and telepathy had always been weak. His thoughts were too loud and his feelings too obvious, and trying to hide always seemed to make it worse. After hiding himself in a place filled with bodies but not with minds that could hear him his mental voice had become a scream. He couldn’t share water with Haru anymore. No matter how much he liked Haru, he couldn’t be anywhere near him.

Truthfully, it was because he liked Haru that he couldn’t be near. The ocean had been safer. Fish that couldn’t speak or think didn’t care if he cried about his feelings for Haru.

That had been his whole reason for coming to Earth in the first place. It was easy to not say something as long as the person he wanted to say it to wasn’t around. It was only when Haru was near, bubbling over with energy and making the world around him shine, that it became difficult to stay silent. Haru had wanted him to join the same family-school so they could always be together, so his only option was to run away.

Going where no one could hear him had seemed like a good idea at the time, but by the time Haru caught him he felt like he had been screaming anything to cover one simple thought. He couldn’t keep that up forever.

Haru wanted him to spend some time on dry land instead. He would be able to talk to people who could talk back, without being in water where his mind would try to reach out too far.

The thought of being around humans was kind of scary. Before, Urara had hoped that if he didn’t try to talk to them they wouldn’t know he was there. He just encouraged them not to think about the place where he was so they would leave him alone. He had still ended up causing a lot of trouble. He was sure they would still be angry with him. (Coco was angry with him, too. Not so much for assimilating her into his horde as for admitting he had been too far gone to realize.)

Haru wouldn’t let him hide. He was very firm in his conviction that humans were nice and Urara needed to talk to them.

After he met Yuki it was easier to see what Haru meant. Yuki was so welcoming. He wasn’t pushy or loud. He thought a lot, usually before he spoke. He was good at explaining things. And he had pretty hair. It was easy to see why Haru liked him so much.

It was tempting to ask, “Do you like him more than me?” Urara found himself not speaking to Haru very much, afraid it would slip out. He was afraid Haru would know why he was asking.

Yuki would probably never ask something like that. He could be very quiet when he wanted to. When they were fishing he could be as quiet as Urara wanted to be. Urara wasn’t used to being near someone for so long without hearing something of how they were feeling. It was nice, being near someone without thoughts swarming between them.

The peaceful moment was interrupted by a yank on the line that almost made him drop the rod.

“You got one?” Yuki jumped to grab the back of his belt, grounding him before he could stumble over the edge of the dock. Urara would have preferred if he’d grabbed the rod instead. “It’s your fish. You reel it in. You can do it!”

Yuki’s encouragement made it easier when he felt like he had no idea what he was doing. After several minutes of struggling on the unfamiliar end of rod and line, Yuki leaned over the side of the dock and lifted a still-thrashing fish with the net.

“You got the first one! If you hold it I can take your picture.”

That was how Urara found himself with a slippery fish trying to jackknife in his hands, struggling awkwardly to smile, until Yuki helped him tip it into the bucket of water they’d left in the middle of the dock. Urara crouched over the bucket, staring at it in fascination.

The fish was several times larger than he naturally was. It could have fit him in its mouth as easily as the lure it had tried to inhale. There was no reason to be nervous about a fish that couldn’t think the way he could, but there was something surreal about the reversal.

Yuki had removed the hook from the fish’s mouth and was now checking over the lure. It was pretty, with a silver belly and rusty-red back, but Urara wouldn’t have grabbed it so greedily.

“How did you know it would bite?”

“You have to know what kind of food they normally eat so you can choose a lure that mimics that.”

It made sense when Yuki explained it that way. He would know what he was talking about. He had even known to use Haru as a lure. Urara hadn’t wanted to eat him, but his exact motivation didn’t matter. He hadn’t been able to resist when Haru was there in front of him. Yuki had caught him very easily.

Urara reached into the bucket and dipped one finger in the cool water. _I’m glad you caught me,_ hummed in the small space and he pulled his hand back again. The fish didn’t seem to notice.

“Are you okay with taking the fish home and eating it? I didn’t ask because it’s never bothered Haru, but we could still put it back.”

“It’s okay. Do we need to catch more?”

“Yeah! That would be best. Sorry. Your expression was kind of. . . but I’m not very good at reading people. But I’m the last person who gets to tell you that you should say what you’re feeling more often.”

Urara had always felt like that was his curse. He said too much of what he was feeling. His voice carried too far. All he ever wanted to be was quiet.

His voice didn’t carry now, though. Thoughts didn’t carry through dry air the same way. If he wanted to speak he had to go through the physical process of speaking. He could close his mouth, stop his tongue, or hold his breath more easily than he could speak.

Urara suddenly saw the appeal of being human.


End file.
